Supervision and Administration of Locomotive Repair Contracts

Having been 'Sentinelling' for nearly as long as I've been breathing I can confirm the somewhat 'Distortional' habits that they have, and given some of the horror stories that I've heard and experienced NOTHING ever leaves the yard to be worked on.

 

In case anyone is interested, I have posted a summary of the work done to date on our austerity, Bagnall 2746 The Duke in the locomotive MIC section. It was prepared in advance of a visit from ORR and has been kept up to date since. Itwas intended as a guide to the compliance paperwork, it isn't enough to prove compliance in itself. If anyone is planning an overhaul of a run -down locomotive of similar size it may just be useful as a guide to the possible pitfalls and work required and whether an agreement in the style proposed by Steve may be useful. We aren't finished yet, but we are getting close, and I'm hoping we are at a stage where there will be no more surprises. Anyone looking for basic boiler repair information should consult the HRA website and study their guidance notes.

 

Here, to save having to search for it.

Very interesting; thanks for posting it. You all were very lucky to have a good core of qualified people. Or perhaps that was by design, not luck! ) Very good progress; good luck!

Noel

 

Most of it was the luck of having good and well qualified friends, but the more carefully you prepare, and the more you are open and friendly with other people, the luckier you get. I never claim to know much about mechanical engineering; track laying and salvage operations have been more in my line. The thing really kicked off at a 48624 board meeting one afternoon. The others asked me how things stood; I said I'd bought a box van, made it secure, painted it white inside, put in heavy duty shelving and an electric light, and there was a bag of labels ready to attach to anything removed from the engine.

That brought a sudden end to the board meeting - they drew tools out of store, marched off in a body, and by teatime the side rods were off the locomotive and stowed in the van.

I'll point out one minor item in the scheme; I found out later that a friend of mine had been over the engine while it was lying in store and sprayed the frames inside and out with car underseal wax. I had wondered why they were so greasy. Once we'd cleaned it off with paraffin and white spirit the frames were in beautiful condition, no rust anywhere.

 

We used old engine oil in huge quantities while 2968 was at Barry. One of our working party members worked in a bus garage!

 

It would be better to build a new boiler instead repair this disaster. Who knows what material they used?
Frightened!!!
Cheers
Manuel

 

I'm not a engineer, but father worked as a engineer with agricultural/construction/earth moving equipment. I sent im a copy of the report and he was laughing his head off with disbelief...

 

Ah now this is an extremely good and interesting question!

In my experience, the mechanical/boiler competence of owning groups varies considerably. The full range being from people who have near zero mechanical knowledge (and I include many footplate crew in that) to people who could do much of the work overhauling an engine themselves with little outside help. Unfortunately there are not nearly enough in the latter category. Most owning groups rely on engaging a competent person, frequently the CME of the locomotive's home railway.

The safety net is the statutory boiler inspections by an insurance company and the fact that a railway has a sign a locomotive as 'fit to run' before it can be used. Both carry a significant legal responsibility. There are different frequencies of examination for different items, tyre thickness measurements might occur just once a year, or the locomotive might be weighed only when it breaks a spring on goes on/off a low-loader, a piston and valve exam is done on mileage etc.. This works reasonably well with very few incidents, and most failures would not be classified as dangerous. The owner or owning group is not however exempt from legal obligations and could still face manslaughter chargers or similar for negligence, or worse, covering up a defect. It is also possible unsuitable persons can be banned from owning steam locomotives.

When repairs are due, the owners level of oversight varies considerably and I'm sorry to say huge sums of money are often wasted. Those owning groups who have the benefit of, or contract a competent engineer and who keep a close eye on what is going on inevitably fare better. Otherwise you are entirely trusting the contractor with whom the work is placed. This can work fine of course, but we all know problems do arise. The UK heritage industry is very much a cottage industry where no one workshop can do everything and you soon learn who is capable of doing what, or even where competent staff you trust have moved to. If you use reputable contractors for the right jobs, this helps minimise issues. There are self employed engineers who float around and who can be invaluable if you know who they are and have the right relationship.

The real cost saving however is in doing the right jobs on the engine at the right time and in the right order. This requires a rolling maintenance plan with frequent examinations and ride outs to understand how the engine is performing. There is IMO a very great benefit to being familiar with the asset and knowing its history, when where items overhauled, by whom, what is its condition, how long an item might reasonably be expected to last.

A lot of problems can arise due to contracts or more specifically, lack thereof. I would suggest most projects to do not have adequate contracts in place (half a page of A4, or a couple of emails) and too many projects run on estimates. The argument against fixed costs is always, well we took this apart and found X,Y&Z unexpected problems. My argument is always right then, stop lets have a discussion about the findings, what are the acceptable solutions and associated costs, then agree a way forward and put it all in writing. We overhauled Foxcote at Tyseley on this basis and yes, unexpected problems were found and new items where added to the schedule along with an agree price. In the end however the whole thing came out exactly to the pound where Tyseley said it would. So it is possible.

We are dealing with tried and tested designs for which most of the drawings are available, particularly on the western region, and standardisation means numerous other examples of a component exist on other locos. If components are 'put back to drawing' and of the right material, then the loco inevitably will work. On the flip side, not everything is on a drawing, including the means of doing jobs. There is now almost no-one left who worked in the steam workshops of the old railway companies and the generation of engineers who learnt from them are reaching retirement age. This includes also those doing inspections who can become risk adverse and demand small defects are fixed that would have been considered fine in 1950 for another year pounding up shap every day. Loss of engineering knowledge is in opinion more of a risk to the movement than coal supply.

 

Paraphrasing on the contracting part, I think you are saying that the contract has to specify precisely what is being contracted for, and then when something comes up that is unexpected, customer and supplier have to talk intelligently and in depth about what the problem is and how to fix it.

I completely agree.

 

Yes exactly. Many instances of loose contracts allowing costs to spiral when contractors take it on themselves to fix an unexpected find without consulting on the options.

 

I always try and think of possible other work outside the core and ask for a price as an option. i.e. Replace smokebox, replace crown stays, etc. Get a cost for this as part of the original enquiry. You don't have to include them in the contract placed but do leave them in as options. That way you already know how much and it avoids the contractor being able to quote what he likes if they do need to be done. Once the contractor has your boiler/whatever on site, it is hard for you to seek quotes from others and any additional workquoted is effectively single tender. You should also have clauses in the contract that enble you to pull the plug with no significant penalty. That way, you can move the job elsewhere if the costs justify it.

 

When I was a volunteer on 'Balmoral' we did a lot of preparatory work to identify what needed doing before getting prices for dry docking because as The Chief pointed out, once the ship was in dry dock, the ship repairers had you over a barrel if there was any more steelwork that needed doing that wasn't in the original quote

 

In today's competitive market the shiprepairers will price at not much above nett cost and hope to make their profit on the extras.
Been there , done it !

Bob.

 

Agree, I've certainly done exactly that in the past. Costs for jobs that need doing, and for those that might need doing.